“Where do you think you’re going?” A raspy voice bellowed
across the intersection of Van Nuys
and Foothill. “You’re no boyfriend of
mine! You think you can get away?”
I sat at the stoplight looking dumbly
ahead. With warning lights flashing on
my motorcycle’s dashboard and a good

15 miles to go to get to work, I wasconsumed with battery range anxiety atthe time. “You can’t take what you wantand leave! You’re a thief!”I looked around and saw the source.A white-hair lady dressed in a dirty rain-coat was standing at a bus stop, staringstraight at me with gigantic red eyes,ranting. We made eye contact. That wasa mistake. “You’re no boyfriend of mine!You think you can get away?” She lefther shopping cart and charged towardme. With open hands, she started slap-ping my helmet, screaming. I can’tremember the exact words, but shewas adamant that I was no longer herboyfriend. The light turned green, and Imade a legitimate burnout. As she gotsmaller in the rearview mirror, I heardfaint chuckling. The man in the car nextto me was laughing about the incident. Icould hear him perfectly, smell his cigarsmoke, and I could have reached in andthumped him on the skull—if I wanted.I didn’t.

That was an early lesson from my
commuting career on the Zero S electric motorcycle. On the Zero, you’re
very connected with your environment.
You’re not in a climate-controlled cockpit. The Zero is perfectly soundless at
any speed, so you can hear the cell-phone conversations in cars around
you, listen to other people’s music and
occasionally have a relationship with a
crazy woman at an intersection.

MORE LESSONS LEARNED

I learned a few other lessons on the
Zero. I have a long commute; almost

90 miles each way. Don’t ask me why,it just worked out that way. If I drivemy pickup, getting to the office andback costs about 45 bucks a day. Inmy wife’s Honda Civic, it’s $25. On theZero, it’s essentially nothing. I imaginethere’s a slight increase in my electricbill, but it’s embedded with air condi-tioning and household appliances tothe point where it can’t be quantified.At the other end, I plug into a socket atwork, and if the boss has noticed, hehasn’t said anything. It takes almost afull office day to recharge the battery,so at least there’s no chance that I’ll gohome early.The fact that I can actually get to theoffice on a single charge is amazing,at least to me. In the modern historyof electric motorcycles, that’s a veryrecent milestone. Several electric motor-cycles have come and gone over theyears. The early ones would go about40 miles if you rode conservatively. Itried making a portion of the commuteby parking my truck at a halfway point,unloading the e-bike, and then trying toride the rest of the distance. SometimesI was successful, sometimes not.

According to the specs of the 2013
Zero S, its maximum range is 137
miles of surface streets or 85 miles of
highway. That’s a fairly accurate claim
(another recent milestone: realistic
advertising), but you have to understand
how to ride it. Unlike gasoline motors,
e-bikes get their best mileage in stop-and-go conditions. Nothing sucks down
the charge like top speed, and the S is
very, very fast. It will accelerate hard all
the way past 90 mph in “Sport” mode,
but that kind of behavior cuts your
range in half. There’s a little toggle that
lets you switch to “Eco” mode, which is
where you have to keep it if you want to
go the distance. In Eco, the top speed
is restricted to 71 mph, acceleration is
limited, and the motor is programmed
to reclaim energy when you coast to a
stop. That brings up another lesson: no
matter how hard the Zero accelerates,